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Selecting The Right Authoring Tool For Mobile Learning

In this article, we list the criteria to select the right authoring tool for mobile learning and a few popular authoring tools that will help you develop high-quality mobile learning interventions.

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How To Choose The Right Authoring Tool For Mobile Learning

Multinational organizations are moving toward mobile learning from online training on desktops and laptops, due to changing learner preferences and the proliferation of multiple digital devices with various screen sizes. Online training that works across devices, irrespective of the screen size and orientation, improves learner engagement as learners can easily switch from one device to another.

HTML5 output and responsive design are the keys to creating mobile learning that works on multiple devices. Responsive design makes your course adapt to any device or web browser, seamlessly. To create online courses with responsive design, select an authoring tool that relieves you of the burden of creating different versions of the same course for different devices. How do you do that? Here we list the criteria to select the right authoring tool for mobile learning and a few authoring tools.

2 Criteria For Choosing The Right Authoring Tool For Mobile Learning

1. Consider Training Objectives And Course Content

The right authoring tool for mobile learning depends on the training objectives and course content. If you are designing mobile learning for performance support or just-in-time support, you have to use an authoring tool that focuses on a mobile-first learning experience and responsive design.

The tool should allow you to organize the course content into small chunks, which can be structured into interlinked pages with a menu that can help your employees quickly find the learning content they need.

For example, if you want to deliver an introduction to a complex online course on handheld devices, you have to select an authoring tool that’s compatible with the complicated elements such as videos, interactions, and graphics. However, if you want to meet these requirements, your videos should be short with a duration of 2-3 minutes, interactive elements should be compact, i.e. occupy less memory space, and animations should be simple and short.

2. Consider The Learning Environment

When you want to select the right authoring for mobile learning, you have to consider the environment or the circumstances where learners will take the mLearning courses. For example, if your employees travel by bus/train, they will operate their smartphones with one hand. In this scenario, the authoring tool should support gestures such as swipe. If your employees want a hands-free learning experience, your authoring tool should provide rich multimedia.

Consider the location of mobile learning too. If your employees are in a remote place, graphics, animations, and videos may not play seamlessly due to limited or lack of bandwidth. Mobile learning courses with huge file sizes can prolong the time taken to download.

4 Authoring Tools For Superior Mobile Learning Interventions

Let’s now have a look at some popular authoring tools that help develop superior mobile learning interventions:

1. Storyline 360 And Rise

You can create inherently responsive eLearning with Articulate Rise. This means courses developed with Rise work on multiple devices. Rise automatically adapts the courses for every digital device, using the latest web technologies.

Storyline 360 is the right authoring tool for creating interactive and visually rich mobile learning courses. This software publishes online courses to three different formats Flash, HTML5, and iOS. This helps you extend a multimedia-rich and interactive experience to mobile learning. The responsive player in Storyline 360 gives HTML5 output so that courses are automatically displayed on devices such as tablets and smartphones.

2. Lectora Inspire 17.1

Lectora offers simple ways to convert text-heavy courses to engaging mobile learning courses with HTML5 output. The Responsive Course Design (RCD) feature in this tool allows you to design course content only once, but the design will automatically change its layout to suit multiple screens.

Courses developed with Lectora can be viewed on most mobile browsers and have templates for Apple mobiles. This authoring tool is compatible with both web-based and native learning applications. It offers Lectora mobile app for all iPhones, iPads, and Android devices that allow you to create courses for mobile devices – both online and offline.

3. Adobe Captivate 2017

Fluid boxes and an intuitive user interface in Adobe Captivate make it easy to create mobile learning assets. It supports gesture-based mLearning, which means learners can tap, swipe, or scroll through the courses on mobile devices easily.

The responsive learning design feature in Captivate 2017 allows you to create several versions of a single online course for multiple devices. If you create a course for desktops and need to convert it to mobile devices, Captivate will automatically adjust the layout of the page to fit the mobile screen size and resolution.

4. iSpring Suite 8.7

iSpring Suite is helpful in converting PowerPoint presentations to mobile learning courses. This authoring tool comes with an adaptive player, enabling online courses to play on all digital devices – desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. iSpring helps you create simulation-based learning courses that work on mobile devices. mLearning developed in iSpring adapts to the screen size and orientation of the device used by employees to view the mobile learning course.

Select an authoring tool for mobile learning based on your training requirements and the needs of your employees. Before selecting the authoring tool, check with your eLearning developers and/or vendor to get a clear idea. This will simplify your selection process.